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SOCIETY OF LANDSPEED RACING HISTORIANS Newsletter #5
THE PRESIDENT'S CORNER: To most historians,
Land Speed Racing doesn't show up on the radar.
Maybe we're cursed. The more we know, the more we don't
know and that sets us off to search for even
more. In the last couple of years I've gotten really
serious about documenting our history. The earliest
event on So-Cal lakes that I've run across so far took
place in 1914. Joe Nikrent set a one mile AAA
records of 108 mph driving a Buick. Pretty soon that will
be 100 years. We've got lots of holes in between
to fill in. Jim Miller
Caption for the photo in the attachment:
A side view of Bill Burke's Bantam coupe at Bonneville
in 1950.
It was entered by Burke and the Dahm brothers, Jim and
Tommy, in Class B Modified Coupe. The car
was powered by a 249" Merc and ran 141.509 mph for
second in class. In the upper left is the Bell Auto
Parts tent, who sponsored the car. Mickey Thompson
would later own the car and run it with twin en-
gines. AHRF/David McConaughy Collection.
Jim Miller
1) WHAT'S SHAV'S BIRTHDAY? Doug Stokes
Doug: It's September 16, of course, for the
newspaperman
who gave car racing a great deal of fair coverage in the L. A.
Times. Shav Glick is the grand old man of Southern
California journalism and he wrote in a style that was plain and
factual, with honest terms that hot rodders like.
2) I would appreciate a copy of The Society of
Landspeed Racing Historians Newsletter please. Gary
Carmichael Gary: Welcome. Back
issues of the Newsletter are on the way.
Editor's notes: The SCTA Minutes 1937-1948 book is
coming along really well. The text and index are done
and the photographs are being inserted into the text by my brother,
David Parks. Dad is doing the captions. The
book is a fascinating history of the beginnings of the SCTA. We hope
to have it printed and available for sale by
November 1, in time for the Open House on the 2nd at the Wally Parks
NHRA Motorsports Museum. On the
7th of November, a Wednesday, the opening of the exhibit for the 70th
Anniversary of the SCTA will start and
last through the month.
3) This came through fine and it is posted on
the website. Thanks for the change. I do appreciate it. It is
posted
http://www.oilstick.com/sportsfans/070905.htm. I may
have to change the coding as I use the date
for the pobb also. As long as they stay in the right folder
it won’t be a problem. Evelyn Roth Evelyn:
Thank you for posting the newsletters and the other racing
articles on your website,
www.oilstick.com. To the
readers of the SLRH Newsletter, Evelyn has posted the Gas-Up Party
and Dry Lakes Hall of Fame on her site.
She also posts the Mendenhall Gas Pump Museum news and photos as
well. She has posted obituaries and the
Gone Racin' by-line column and biographies of various racers.
Oilstick has been one of the mainstays among the
landspeed racing websites available. We are grateful for Evelyn's
efforts to keep news of landspeed racing in the
public's view.
4) Recreating a legendary car.
A couple of years ago I was talking to Jim Lattin about old
time lakes cars.
I brought up the Bill Warth car that ran a Model B
engine at Muroc in the '30's. Relateing a little more car
history, it ended up in Stu Hilborn's hands and was
the first lakes car to set a 150 mph record. With a little
arm twisting I talked him into doing a repro of the
car since it was so significant. I was lucky enough to
have some pictures of the car being modified to take
the 21 stud flattie that it ran and also some build
photos of the unique 4-carb intake manifold. That was
the easy part. The first order of business was what
kind of car had donated its chassis to Mr. Warth as a
basis of the car. As luck would have it, one day while
snooping around at the Petersen Automobile Museum I
spotted a '23 Chevrolet. Before you know it I'm
crawling around on the ground under it. Yes, this was
the chassis used for the car. After acquiring a frame
the car took shape quickly at Lattin's workshop. As
luck would have it, Stu agreed to be the consultant on
the recreation. We had a meeting to discuss the car
and Stu related that he had only run the car after the
war (WWII). I went home and did a little digging
through some old S.C.T.A documents. Starting with
Warth, I recorded every date and speed the car had run
from day one until Stu sold the car to Gerry Grant
of piston ring fame. At our next meeting I presented
my findings. It's interesting how some dates and
speeds jog the memory. Stu lit up and remembered
bringing the car home on December 7, 1941 no less
and running it in 1942. At that time he was a paint
chemist and mixed the paint for the car and a special
blue color for the aluminum cylinder heads. He then
went on about how he made the grill shell insert by
cutting out every other row from a piece of stamped
metal and filing for hours, all with a big grin on his
face. The point of all this is that we used some old
photos and documents to recreate a piece of history
that would show the current and future generations
what real hot rodding was about. We also got an 88
year old Stu Hilborn to be a 27 again and climb into
his race car. That made my year. Jim Miller
Jim:
My brother David and I were there for the unveiling and
you are all to be commended for your efforts.
5)
albatron@xxxx.com wrote:
I was listening to the Jerry Doyle show ... he had a stand in, some guy named Chris out of I THINK,
Kansas City. Anyway this guy ranted about the
expenditure, how thrill seekers put themselves at
risk and create these scenarios. He then tried to say
he's (Fossett) been unsuccessful many times
and required searches in the past. I wasn't aware of
that.
First, I've been critical of Fossett after his RTW balloon flights for greedily going after record after record in any
field he could find. A sore point for me are the glider
records which have almost always set in the past by talented
and dedicated individuals, not by deep pocketed types who
traveled the world to remote areas for the unique
conditions, bought the best coaches and equipment, and
bulldozed his way into the record books. Some of the
altitude record he has set were once held in 1948 by Paul
MacCready who set his world records as a college
student in a pre-WWII Polish wooden glider. Fossett has barely
exceeded a record set in 1961 by Paul Bikle in
the Tehachapi hills, using his privately owned Schweizer tin
glider, back when Bikle headed up Edwards flight test.
No exotic locales, no pressure suit, in fact a well outdated
sailplane being flown to its max by an observant and
well organized pilot. And almost fifty years later Fossett was
able to exceed it by barely 4000 feet by going to
Argentina and hiring a world class glider test pilot as
"co-pilot and crew!" I heard he was trying to talk Rutan and
Branson into letting him pilot the first civil orbital
flight. Craig Breedlove, whose jet powered car Steve apparently
bought, is a unique breed of dreamer, self taught engineer,
and fearless driver, whose greatest talent was his ability
to get others to buy into his dream. He came close to beating
Green and Noble to the sound barrier with a tenth
of the funding. Compare the cost and true achievement of his
orbital flights to the Rutan/Rutan/Yeager efforts.
Now, that being said, Fossett's solo balloon journeys were
initially funded solely by Steve, and truly remarkable
for their trail blazing and courage. I only recall his having
to be rescued at sea once, maybe twice, and NO search
effort was involved. Most importantly, while I question his
flawed drive and ego, I admire his achievements and
inspiration. In summary, I have nothing but disgust for the
current crop of media personalities, self appointed
celebrities, politicians and the ilk whose SOLE talent is to
dig up tawdry criticisms, wrong-headed evaluations,
and downright lies relating to people they should be
respecting. These rabble rousers' sad lives are filled with
shrill
rancor, merely to get them greater exposure. I have a hard
time even viewing them with Christian pity. I truly
pray for a good outcome. Bob Storck Bob:
Many of us were there in '97 when Breedlove, Noble and
Green dueled in the desert to see which team would set the
record. As amateur and professional historians, our
job is to compile, save and restore all the documents that we
can find. Eventually we will write on what we know
and leave an archive to the next generation of historians and
fans of land speed racing. While we do form our
own opinions, which are very necessary, in our hearts we hope
that all the landspeeders, including the rich and
not so rich alike, will come back safely. We hope Fossett is
safe and that he runs for the record someday. Even
with his money, it won't be an easy record to break. As for
Noble, he relishes the idea of someone breaking his
record or coming VERY close to it. Craig and Sir Richard were
good friends and often their 'duel' was beneficial
to each side as it helped both of them. I saw the Brits come
close to financial disaster at Black Rock. They had
been reduced to peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and the
ladies said that they could barely afford that. The 7
weeks had reduced us all to the breaking point. Breedlove
stepped forward with a statement to the press that
his car was ready and the record was in his sights. The truth
was that the car wasn't and most of us knew that,
and we can't prove that he made the statement to help Noble.
But after that statement to the press, donations
from Europe jumped dramatically and made a great deal of
difference to those struggling to stay and complete
their task. In my opinion, Craig's presence at Black Rock was
as much in support of his friend as it was to set
the record himself. Landspeed racers are enemies of the
clock, not of each other.
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Members: Henry Astor, Glen Barrett, Warren Bullis, Gary
Carmichael, Jack Dolan, Ugo Fadini, Robert Falcon,
Rich Fox, Glenn Freudenberger, Bruce Geisler, Stan Goldstein, Walt
James, Wendy Jeffries, Dick Martin, Ron
Martinez, Tom McIntyre, Don McMeekin, Tom Medley, Jim Miller, Don
Montgomery, Mark Morton, Louise
Ann Noeth, David Parks, Richard Parks, Wally Parks, Erich Rickman, Roger
Rohrdanz, Evelyn Roth, Ed Safarik,
Frank Salzberg, Charles Shaffer, Mike Stanton, Doug Stokes, Bob Storck,
Al Teague, JD Tone and Jack
Underwood.
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